Exceptions
by believeindreamers
Summary: A sixth-year fic centered around Harry Potter and everyone's favorite Potions Master. Dark Harry! Rated for language and violence. Harry's taking charge, and not everyone's happy about it.
1. More Special Than You Knew

**A/N:** Okay, this is a scene as I imagine it from the upcoming sixth book. Not, of course, that J.K. would ever write this, but I imagine Sirius's death made Harry do a lot of growing up. So here we are. This may become a rather long, multiple-chapter story, if it appears anyone's reading it. So, my take on what happens when you combine one Harry Potter, a godfather's death, Severus Snape and some Occlumency lessons that never quite got done. In other words: chaos. Enjoy, and adieu!

**Disclaimer:**I own nothing, besides a barking dog and a cell phone that gets really sucky reception. Trust me, you want neither.

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Have you ever watched a man die? It changes something in you, makes you wonder what it feels like. Makes you wonder . . why not me? Why must the others always pay? And you know . . deep inside . . it's because you're special. I hate being special._

- **_Harry James Potter_**

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Harry stood in the doorway for a long moment before he crossed the room to Snape's desk. He hesitated, Griffindor pride warring with a Slytherin's keen instinct for self-preservation. And the memories he bore made it easier to say the words:

"Teach me."

"I won't waste my time again, Potter." Snape didn't look up, didn't pause in his methodical marking of the papers, considering the conversation closed. But as Harry turned to go, curiosity got the better of him. "Where in Merlin's name did you get up the guts to actually come down here and ask me to continue your Occlumency lessons?"

"It has something to do with the fact that I watched my godfather die, and knew that the most direct cause of it was me." Potter's voice was eerily calm. "Or maybe it has a bit more to do with the fact that the first spell I performed on returning to Hogwarts was a Silencing Charm around my bed . . . because I wake up screaming every night, and I don't want anyone else to know. Maybe it's because the next death I see may be Lupin's, or yours. Voldemort has very intriguing methods of entertaining himself, doesn't he?"

Snape froze. Denial rose to his lips, never voiced. Potter knew – that was enough. They shared those memories. But Snape had been given the escape of closing his eyes when a prisoner's pain became too much for him to watch. Harry, viewing the scene through Voldemort's red eyes, wasn't given that liberty.

"It would please him greatly to know that he nightly disturbs my dreams – that no matter how many doses of Dreamless Sleep I take, I cannot block his touch. I think he kills, sometimes, just to see how far he can push me before I snap. Not for his own pleasure, but because he knows it hurts me. Last night was . . . very bad."

"I wasn't there."

"I know. Thank God you weren't. I think it would have made you sick; I know I spent several hours last night throwing up, because I couldn't wipe my mind free of his influence. He takes pleasure in watching them die, in making victims of those smaller and weaker than he is. And when I'm in his head, I can't help but feel that . . . that _rush _too." Harry shrugged. "I take comfort in that he still considers me a threat – still believes there's something about me that he's not capable of destroying. God knows I can't find anything _special_ enough in myself that four people have already sacrificed themselves for me."

"Your parents . . . Black." Snape couldn't keep a hint of curiosity from his voice as he tried to think of the fourth.

"And indirectly, Cedric." Harry shrugged. "I don't care how many times I'm told that one, at least, wasn't my fault. The Death Eaters meant to have me dead; it was my decision to have him take the cup with me that brought him into it. One death, for certain, that I cannot blame upon Voldemort."

"You know, Potter, I suggest you discuss these feelings of _inadequecy_ with a pyschiatrist, because frankly, I have no interest in your litany of complaints."

"Inadequate?" Harry laughed, but there was something bitter, almost serpentine, in it. "That's a weak way to say it, I suppose. Accurate enough, though. I am quite possibly the worst person this world could have picked to be their hero. _The Boy-Who-Lived_. God, what a morbid title. Interesting, isn't it, that I only possess that little epitaph because of the deaths of so many other, likely worthier, people? What a label to stick on a child." His hand came up, and he ran his thumb over the length of the lightning-bolt scar. And when his fingers came away, he looked at the blood upon them with the utmost indifference.

"Should see the Headmaster about that," Snape drawled.

"It wouldn't matter," Harry said simply. "To try to stop it would only cause more damage, only frustrate the Dark Lord further. Deprived of his easiest way to torment me, he might devise others . . . that would harm more innocent souls than mine. Good night, Professor."

Snape didn't raise his head to watch him go, steeled himself to simply let the child walk away; God knows it would be best, in the long run. But he saw the mark of exhaustion in the boy's slumped shoulders, read horror after horror in the depths of Lily's emerald eyes. And knew how it felt to have nowhere else to turn.

"Potter." He didn't look up. He hadn't entirely fixed upon this course, refused to be swayed by what pity he felt for the Potter boy. "How often do you have these . . _visions_?"

"Often enough."

"Every time there is a meeting?" Snape persisted, though he couldn't quite imagine such a thing. Voldemort insisted upon absolute devotion from his companions, and called them often for no more reason than to catch them unawares.

"I haven't had a vision in two, almost three days."

"Only when you sleep, then." He snorted at Potter's look of surprise. "It takes no wealth of observation skills to know you haven't slept – at least not well – for the better part of a week." He hesitated. "It takes some trust, Occlumency. Frankly, Potter, I doubt you trust me enough to make it work any better this time around."

"Professor Dumbledore trusts you." And there was a new interest in Harry's eyes – interest, and more than a little amusement.

"Yes, he does. He has reason enough to do so."

"So he says," Potter drawled, dismissing the words with a wave of his hand. "But I seem to have lost faith in the Headmaster's . . . _beliefs_." He finished the sentence with a sneer oddly reminiscent of Snape's own.

"Then why make the suggestion?"

"Because I have my own reasons for believing in your utter devotion to this cause, Professor." He laughed softly. "I've seen every Death Eater meeting for the better part of a month, and they happen frequently enough that I can't quite understand how his men recover enough between curses to be of any use to him."

"Fear is a powerful motivator – even greater than pain, at times."

"He nearly killed you for refusing to torture the girl," Harry said easily, almost glibly, but Snape saw the pain beneath the carefully cultivated mask. "A lot of men have broken under the Cruciatus . . . at times, I doubt my own ability to stand against his fury." He shrugged. "I doubt your humanity, Professor, but not your loyalty . . . or your strength."

"Why me, and not Dumbledore?" Snape queried, curiosity rising to the fore.

"Because you, at least, never lied to me." Harry hesitated. "And because I think you would be more inclined to agree to teach me something of the Dark Arts, if only on the off chance that one might backfire on me."

"I heard, from Bellatrix Lestrange, that you had attempted to cast _Crucio_ on her after she murdered Black. But, of course, I dismissed the rumor. The Gryffindor _Golden_ Boy would surely do nothing so disdainful." Snape fixed him with a discerning glare. "Does Albus know?"

"He knows everything else, doesn't he? It's never been mentioned," Harry went on, in response to Snape's patented glare. "I expect he suspects, but it's never been said. I think it frightens him, to realize that I have that inside me."

"Would you have killed her?" Snape said, quietly.

"No. But not for altruistic reasons. Fudge has refused to remove the dementors from Azkaban. And if those creatures can have such an effect on me, when I am innocent of anything but a violent past . . . it would have pleased me a great deal to throw her into a cell and watch her own crimes eat her alive."

"Your anger at Dumbledore, your hatred for Voldemort and Lestrange, could make you very proficient in the arena of Dark Magic. You have enough hatred in you to make a very vicious, vindictive dueller, a force to be reckoned with. Dumbledore's Golden Boy, indeed."

"I should hope so. I'll have to be, to defeat the Dark Lord." Unconsciously Harry copied Snape's derisive term for Voldemort.

"I should think Dumbledore would quite take care of that end of things."

"I doubt it," Harry commented, ignoring the sneer in Snape's words. "If you believe in genuine prophecy, that is. I am, supposedly, the _chosen_ _one_ destined to kill Voldemort or be slaughtered by him. As it stands, the second appears the far more likely. I am hoping to rectify the situation before Riddle and I meet again."

Snape eyed him almost warily. "So you, Potter, are the Order's last hope of salvation?" He waited for Harry's nod before letting out a pained sound and closing his eyes in resignation. "Damn."

"Chose a none-too-opportune moment to renew your vows of loyalty to Dumbledore, didn't you?" Harry grinned in response to Snape's snarl.

"I do believe we should begin that training of yours directly, Potter. Beginning with the casting of the Unforgivable Curses and your animagus training." Snape fixed him with an appraising look. "Considering your hero worship of Black, I would be greatly surprised if you haven't at least put some thought into your animagus form."

"I know what I'll be, if that's what you mean . . and where your past history as a Death Eater will become something of an advantage. Hermione is the only one of my friends I would trust to give me advice on the transformation, and until recently, she wouldn't have been able to see me." Harry waited for it to dawn on his professor, and was vaguely pleased by how quickly Snape arrived at the proper conclusion.

"You're a _thestral_?"

"Yup," Harry said easily. "Very apt, I'd say. Hagrid mentioned that they were once believed to be bad omens – and merely being in my presence does seem to get people killed a little too often to blame it on bad luck, doesn't it?"

"Blame it on the Dark Lord," Snape advised. "It's safer, for all of us."

"Very well. Voldemort killed them, because I was too weak to prevent it. I stood there, and I watched when Pettigrew killed Cedric, very much the way one would drown a puppy. I wasn't three feet away when Bellatrix Lestrange pushed Sirius through the veil. And I did nothing." Harry raised a hand to forestall the protest he saw in Snape's eyes. "No, I didn't want them to die. But it happened. And I _will never_ be that helpless again."

"I understand that, believe me. But I cannot condone it."

"Tom Riddle asked me once . . what was special about me, what extraordinary talent I possessed that I could defeat the most powerful Dark Lord in our world as a year-old baby. And eventually he decided that there wasn't anything special about me at all. I intend to prove him wrong."

"Indeed, Potter . . . I thought, when you chose to support Light, that you had proven something to the rest of us, if not to yourself. You are not . . what he was."

"No. But that proves nothing. Tom Riddle didn't grow up with the intention of becoming the next Dark Lord. Things happened to him that he couldn't deal with, and he made the decision to never again be helpless, to never place his happiness in any hands but his own. He chose an easier way . . . he doesn't care for anyone. That makes him cold, but it keeps him safe – because he'll never feel deeply enough for anyone to make their life worth more to him than his own."

"Demons are never born . . only made." Snape shrugged Harry's look of brief surprise. "I believed that kind of philosophical discussion beyond your range of intelligence, Potter."

"I understand his choices, Professor. I don't agree with them, but I know why he did what he did. On the other hand, I envy him . . because he, at least, had a choice."

"He chose wrongly." And Snape's eyes were wary.

"Yes. But so did the people around him – the father who abandoned him, the professors who refused to see that life in an orphanage was killing him, bit by bit. And Dumbledore, who still hasn't learned that the people without families make good soldiers, better generals, and the best murderers. I wonder what he'd say if I told him only Draco Malfoy prevented him from having not one, but two dark lords on his hands?" Harry mused. He laughed at the bemused expression on the Potions Master's face. "Well, I'm hardly Ravenclaw material, and I'm no Hufflepuff. It was down to two, almost from the moment that Hat touched my head. It was leaning toward Slytherin – I convinced it not to put me there, because I'd already had words with Malfoy."

"Thank God for that."

"Yeah. I thought it too, later." Harry paused. "There are some things – not many, but a few – that even Slytherins seem to hold sacred. If I could offer you one of those things, Professor . . . . could you be bribed into giving me lessons in some of the more deadly, destructive Dark Magic curses?"

"I should assign you a year's worth of detentions for even suggesting that, Potter. And lacking that, I'm not easily bought. Merlin knows, the Dark Lord has tried."

"The Chamber of Secrets, Professor?" Harry asked softly, and Snape glanced at him.

"Albus told me you'd found it . . . I wasn't certain I believed him. You fought a basilisk there?"

"Yes. That wouldn't happen again, of course, even if there _were_ another basilisk. I was too young then to appreciate just how powerful an ally that damned snake was to Voldemort's teenage reincarnation, and too green to realize that I had every bit the control over it that Riddle did . . . he might have been Salazar Slytherin's true heir, but I am a Parselmouth nonetheless."

"So, in return for teaching you to kill things, you'll show me that historical Chamber?" Snape considered.

"Yes." Harry didn't say more, didn't try to convince him. The past year might have brought out the latent Slytherin in him, but his pride was all Gryffindor. He wouldn't ask again, because he wouldn't be refused.

"Very well," Snape said at last, rising from his chair. "Let's see this chamber of yours."

"Teach first."

"In the chamber, if it is so secret and secure," Snape returned, and Harry inclined his head slightly in acceptance of a point scored.

"Deal." Silently Harry left the room, glancing back only once to assure himself that the Potions master had followed, before setting off at a jog for Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. Snape hesitated before following him in, but didn't comment as Harry crossed the bathroom's flooded floor and leaned over the taps, searching for the tiny snake etched there. "_Open_," he hissed, turning to take in Snape's expression of dazed wonder before gesturing for the man to precede him down the tunnel. With a warning look, Snape obeyed the unspoken command. He didn't relax until he heard Potter's landing, and let out a breath of relief. It shamed him, the admission that for a moment he'd been truly afraid that Potter had lured him here to kill him, perhaps, or to simply abandon him here, miles beneath the school, in a place only Potter and Weasley could find, and only Voldemort and Potter could enter.

"Not much to look at, but it's real enough," Potter commented, leading the way to a set of enormous golden doors, which opened obediently at a hissed command from Potter. Snape stepped forward, and Harry swept him a mock bow, waving him on into the chamber proper. "Slytherin's vaunted Chamber of Secrets. The genuine article." Harry paused a moment to enjoy the startled wonder on Snape's face, but hurried forward as his keen ears caught the barest hint of disgruntled hissing from somewhere behind the Slytherin head statue.

"Be damned if there's another of the things," muttered Harry. "_Speak to me Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four!"_ he called up to the statue, and pulled his wand automatically as the heavy stone slid aside, revealing the dim passage behind.

"_Master_? _Here?_" The questioning, timid hiss was accompanied by the gleam of light on scales blacker than the passage that concealed it. Snape came toward him, wand at the ready, and growled in mild displeasure as Harry brushed him out of the way.

"_Yes, pet_." Harry went farther into the blackened tunnel, emerging a mere second later with a snake, perhaps the size of a fully grown python, wrapped around his waist, its head lolling carelessly along his shoulder. The long black tail tapped gently against his shin, and the snake nuzzled his neck in the affectionate manner of a dog or cat. Harry was hissing crooningly to the creature, and even in Parseltongue, the words sounded faintly like the kind of nonsensical baby-talk people use with infants and young animals.

"What in Merlin's name, Potter . . . ." Snape didn't get far in his reprimand. The snake, feeling the anger fairly radiating from the professor, abruptly decided the loud man was too close to her newfound king, and lifted her head from Harry's shoulder to fix incredibly large, golden eyes on the Potions master.

"_No_!" Harry snapped, rapping the snake sharply on the nose. It winced, whimpering an apology, and Harry's voice gentled. "_You must not even try that, not here. That one – Snape – is cruel, but for the moment, he is needed. He is . . my . ." _ Harry fought to find a word that properly described Snape that could be understood by the young animal. "_Teacher_." In Parseltongue it translated more as 'parent' or 'sibling', but Harry figured it was close enough.

"Potter, that better not be what I think it is." Snape's tone was ominous, and Harry sighed.

"_She_," Harry emphasized the distinction, "is a baby basilisk, probably only a few months old . . . the only offspring of the basilisk I killed. I doubt she could kill you the typical way if she wanted to, but as her fangs are every bit as deady as her gaze, I thought it wise to clarify your status as 'definitively off the menu'."

"She might be small now." Snape paused, looked the snake over, and added, a bit wryly – "_Relatively_ small, but you don't know that she won't turn on you, even kill you accidently, just by looking at you."

"It's willpower . . controllable . . the killing-people thing," Harry clarified. "She doesn't want to kill me – you either, now – and she won't. As to the other, Professor, she's only a baby, untainted by Voldemort's touch. She knows me . . . knew only the older nestmate who tended her egg. But he is gone now, off to join Voldemort, and she is alone. I won't have to teach her to hate Him, Professor. She's already seen him tear her family apart."

"Nonetheless . . I doubt the headmaster's tolerance for you will extend to an immensely dangerous serpent," Severus sneered.

"He will permit it, regardless – because I _can_ control her, and because he wants me to stay here, to be his . . . symbol."

Snape fixed the boy with eyes that suddenly saw more than Gryffindor pride and James Potter's face. There was a new confidence in Potter's every movement – the self-assured certainty that comes only of power. Potter was growing up, maturing into an adult Snape would be more than willing to follow. There would come a time, very soon, when Dumbledore and Potter would part ways – not in convictions, but in methods. There was a new cruelty in the set of the boy's jaw, a kind of savage elegance in the high cheekbones and almond-shaped eyes previously obscured by the insecurity and boyishness that had plagued Potter's early years. Dumbledore wheedled, cajoled, convinced. Potter, Severus felt sure, would _demand_ . . . and Snape was already certain that the frustrated members of Dumbledore's Order – even the more radical Death Eaters – would rally to him.

Snape smiled faintly. "This is going to be _interesting_."


	2. Death Before Dishonor

**Sorry this was so late! I just started college, and was amazed by the amount of shit I had to move! Oh, yeah, um . . . there's cussin' in this chapter. There will be in the rest of the fic. So, if you can't handle that, I'm sorry. A big thanks to all my reviewers, too – y'all are the greatest!!**

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**Chapter 2**

"_Harry_," Hermione hissed urgently, glancing up warily at the Transfigurations professor began to tap her foot in agitation. "_Harry, wake up_!"

"_Mr._ Potter! Awake, if you please!" McGonagall was all but snarling. This class, her sixth year group of Gryffindors and Slytherins, was never her favorite on the best of mornings, and today certainly didn't qualify. A late night meeting of the Order had put her in a particularly sour mood, and the sight of one of her less-talented students – a Gryffindor, no less! – sleeping peacefully at his desk reminded her too vividly of her lost rest.

"Yes, Professor?" Harry went from dozing to utter awareness in an instant . . . a lesson crucial in the Dursley household that had served him well during his summer's training with Alastor Moody and Tonks.

"As you are clearly in no need of further instruction, Mr. Potter, I would be much obliged if you would demonstrate the use of human transfiguration on a member of this class – may I suggest Mr. Weasley as a perfect candidate?"

Harry merely yawned in response and flicked his wand in Ron's direction almost carelessly, murmuring the words under his breath. McGonagall glared at him without even bothering to look at Ron, secure in her certainty that Potter, never overly skilled in Transfiguration, hadn't accomplished a miracle this time, despite his unusual talent for managing that very thing.

"Very funny, Mr. Potter," she began, but paused as the class, even the Slytherins, erupted into laughter.

"Yeah," Harry agreed with a grin. "I thought so, too." At her puzzled expression, he pointed across the room to the red weasel who stood on Ron Weasley's desk, chattering angrily at a giggling Hermione Granger.

"I – oh." McGonagall simply stared at the transfigured rodent for a long moment. There was something going on here, and she would be damned if she'd be shown up by one of her own students. "Change him back, Mr. Potter." Harry did so without further comment, and she resumed her lecture. "That was amusing, but not the effect I was asking for. A human to _human_ transfiguration is what I was discussing – which you'd've known, Mr. Potter, if you'd been conscious and _listening_."

"Sorry," Harry said with an angelic smile. "Like this, then?" He flicked his wand again, and McGonagall couldn't stop herself from smiling as an abruptly altered Ron Weasley looked down at himself warily.

"Harry, what'd you change me into _now_?" he said plaintively.

"Here, Mr. Weasley," McGonagall said with a smile, conjuring a full-length mirror with a wave of her wand.

"Oh, Merlin," Ron groaned, looking into the mirror and finding Draco Malfoy's face staring back at him. "How could you do it to me, mate? _Malfoy_, honestly!"

Harry shrugged, twirling his wand and blowing on the tip in a manner reminiscent of a Western gunfighter. The muggleborns and half-bloods present who recognized the gesture laughed again. "C'mon, Ron, you know Transfiguration isn't nearly as intense without Malfoy here to remind us of what we're supposed to be fighting." He grinned. He'd been responsible for the Potions accident that had sent Malfoy to the hospital wing two days before, and the blond Slytherin hadn't been seen since.

"_Mr. Potter_!" Despite herself, McGonagall couldn't quite keep the edge of humor out of her voice. "Detention! That comment was absolutely improper, and more importantly, untrue."

"For the moment," Harry growled, and McGonagall sighed.

"And you'll have that detention – make it three days' worth – with Professor Snape."

Harry looked up at her with an inscrutable expression. But then, she thought with an inward sigh, that was the case most of the time, now. She recognized the need for Potter to be able to keep his own council. But she'd become accustomed to seeing every one of Harry's emotions on that too-expressive face; the revelation that somehow Potter had become the consummate actor within the last few months without her noticing was startling.

"Certainly, Professor. At least with Umbridge gone, I needn't worry about having a litany of my faults carved into my skin."

"Mr. Potter, if you had listened – "

"It wouldn't have mattered. At least that way I made my stand against her clear for anyone to see. This was done, Professor, because I, for one, wasn't going to sit back and watch as the Ministry's negligence paved the way for Voldemort's destruction of this world." Harry tapped the words engraven into the back of his hand. _I must not tell lies_. "It didn't happen, Professor. Fudge came to his senses in time enough to save a lot of people, if not the only person who mattered to me."

"That was the doing of You-Know-Who, Mr. Potter. Not the Ministry's. Not yours."

Even the Slytherins were silent as professor and student stared into each other's eyes. And in this boy who mattered so much, McGonagall read only pain, and a loneliness too deep for words.

"And I will kill him for that. Voldemort _will_ die, by my hand. Whether he takes me with him when he goes, is his business." Harry left his things behind as he rose lightly to his feet and walked out the door, shutting it oh-so-gently behind him. McGonagall glanced down at her watch and returned to the front of the class.

"We'll be doing human to animal transfigurations next week," she said, softly. "There'll be no homework for tonight."

The students were quiet as they filed out of the room. After they had gone, Minerva McGonagall sank into the seat Harry Potter had so recently occupied. And she cried.

* * *

"What have you done _now_, Potter?" Snape demanded as he stepped into his classroom and paused at the startling sight of the Gryffindor Golden Boy sprawled lazily in the chair behind his desk. "And get away from my desk, for Merlin's sake, before you destroy something."

"Isn't it a great boost to your ego to be considered so horrible that every time professors give me detention, they send me to you?" Harry asked brightly, and Severus rolled his eyes.

"I feel so bloody privilieged, Potter, there are no words to describe my happiness. _Move_."

"Right. I graded the first years' essays while I was waiting," Harry added, vacating the more comfortable seat in favor of one of the students' desks.

Severus simply snorted. His first lessons with Potter had concerned his first love, Potions, and found that the boy wasn't nearly as hopeless as he'd once believed. Not that it surprised him, really; Lily'd been rather grand with Potions in her own right. But then, it was a new idea entirely to not only hope for, but to _expect_ competence from Potter in all areas, not just DADA. The boy had possessed an as yet untapped potential for Transfiguration; of late, he'd become a virtual prodigy in the subject, just as his father had been. He even trusted the boy, now, to perform at Outstanding levels in Potions, despite whatever interference Malfoy could manage. Speaking of Malfoy . . . .

"You ought to redo the Veritaserum we did in class this week. At the moment I've graded you Exceeds Expectations on it, when I know you could have an O."

"I'm surprised you gave me that much," Harry said with a grin. Snape sneered at him, and Harry laughed. It amazed him, how easily he and Snape had fallen into an easy camaderie. They'd always been allies, at the most basic of levels, and Harry's recent attack of humility had broken through Snape's James Potter-based expectations for him. With that old history out of the way, their mutual hatred for Voldemort had fostered an almost familial sense of companionship. Sirius might have been his godfather and legal guardian, but there had always been a sort of devil-may-care humor about Sirius that made his advice . . well, less than advisable. But Snape could be trusted to tell the absolute truth under even the worst circumstances – had been the first person to ever him tell the absolute truth about Voldemort's recent attacks. And for all that the truth wasn't pretty, he valued the honesty in Snape's words.

"Veritaserum was really too explosive not to react with anything Malfoy threw in there," Harry said by way of explanation. "He was asking for it."

"I suppose it would have been too much to ask for you to act like an adult and not retaliate." It wasn't a question.

"Yes," Harry agreed. "It really was. And after all, truth serum's delicate; it was already messed up beyond repair. So, toss in a few spider legs and a hint of basilisk venom –" Snape's eyes narrowed as he recalled the baby basilisk Harry had since named Ariana, and Harry hurriedly went on. " –and _voila_, one hell of an explosion. Localized, of course. Didn't think you'd take kindly to me destroying half the classroom."

"I appreciate your restraint."

"Oh, come on, it was bloody hilarious and you know it. Malfoy, standing there absolutely drenched in this utterly horrible crimson goo, growing this awful magenta fur and fangs to rival Dracula's. The really great part is that Madame Pomphrey hasn't managed to fix him yet." Harry shot his mentor a sly look. "Could be taking so long 'cause there wasn't anything to fix. That might've been his natural form." Harry's expression grew wistful as he considered this. "But I doubt it. I'm just not that lucky."

"Potter . . didn't you notice when I tossed that vial into your cauldon, just before it exploded?"

"Yes. I'm not stupid, either, but I trust you. I assumed it was for my own good."

"It was for . . . well, for entertainment purposes. It was a sticking potion, Potter, of a very peculiar kind. When I introduced it into your potion, I took the risk of it getting on you, but I thought you'd have sense enough to shield yourself. You did, fortunately, and now I can sit back and enjoy the sight of a pink Draco Malfoy for some time. The sticking potion will resist all efforts to remove it, and should remain effective for another . . . two to three days. And, as the headmaster has tired of Malfoy's whining, Draco's going to be kicked out of the hospital wing in another day or so to see if his, ah . . _fur_ will just wear off over time. It will, of course, but not for a while yet."

"Really?" Harry didn't wait for Snape's answer; what was he thinking? Of course he was serious; Snape never joked about something as ridiculous as this. "Oh, Merlin, this is great! The only thing that could make this better is if Voldemort summoned Malfoy, to mark him, and died laughing after he saw him. What a way to go. Certainly not as dignified an end as Voldemort's been hoping for."

"I believe, Potter, that he's hoping for immortality . . so he doesn't have to die at all."

Harry waved away Snape's grim words with the airy confidence of youth. "Don't ruin my moment, Snape. It's impolite."

"Can't have that, then, can we?" And the sneer was gone from Snape's voice, replaced by the tiniest hint of amusement. And then the façade crumbled, and Snape began to laugh. "It _was_ hilarious, wasn't it?"

A brilliant flash of light made the Potions master flinch back, blinking rapidly to clear the bright spots from his vision. "_Potter_."

Harry held up the camera with a triumphant smile. "Gotcha."

"And that, I believe, goes double for me," said another voice from the doorway, and Snape looked up into the twinkling eyes of Albus Dumbledore.

* * *

"Headmaster," Harry greeted, and Snape observed the unperturable Dumbledore with some surprise as he watched the older man shift uneasily under Potter's gaze. Not, of course, that he lacked sympathy for the man; he knew firsthand just how disconcerting Potter's clear green eyes could be, seeming as though they saw into your soul and found something lacking there.

"Harry," Albus returned, but the characteristic twinkle was gone. "And Severus."

"What's wrong?" There was no urgency in Harry's voice, only a world-weary acceptance.

All was not right with the world when a sixteen-year-old boy's first thoughts upon seeing his headmaster were of death and destruction, Snape thought with a sigh. There was some relief in knowing that Potter took this seriously, but his recent apathy seemed to grow with each successive victim, and Severus couldn't help but feel a twinge of concern. It was, perhaps, the better thing for Potter, to simply take each battle as it came, and accept the losses with an eye toward the greater picture and not the prick of guilt bringing the deaths into sharper perspective. And yet . . . .

"Kingsley Shacklebolt has been taken prisoner by Voldemort's forces," Albus said after a moment. "Nymphadora, who was captured with him, has been recovered, critically wounded. We're not sure if she's going to survive the night."

Harry closed his eyes, but not in prayer. He'd stopped believing in God a long time ago. "Yes, I know. Where is she?"

"She's here. Upstairs with Poppy. I thought you'd like to see her, in case." The words Dumbledore didn't say came as clearly as the ones he had: _In case she doesn't make it_.

"Of course."

"Harry, before you go . . . I assumed that as you and Professor Snape seem to be getting along better—" he gave an approving nod to Severus—"that your Occlumency skills had likewise improved. But since you said you already knew about Nymphadora, that is obviously not the case. Might I ask why?"

"No. You may not. And her name, Professor, is _Tonks_." Harry went for the door.

"Harry, why aren't you trying to block these visions?" And there was an urgency that bordered on anger in Dumbledore's voice.

"Because they suffer this for me. The least I can do . . . is watch, and do what I can to ensure that they know they don't die alone."

For several minutes after Harry had gone, they sat in silence, headmaster and former student. "He's taking chances again," said Albus despondently. "We can't afford to let him; he knows how important he is to us, how crucial a role he has to play, and yet he refuses to let us protect him."

"I learned to accept it, eventually," Severus said. "To accept _him_, as a person and not a savior, because at heart, he's not one. He's just a boy, who grew up in a world that couldn't understand him, with a family that didn't want to. He became who he is because in all his life, he's never had anyone who really understood him. His friends see only what he wants them to. I see more in him than he does, but even I don't know him well. I'm not sure he's capable of that kind of . . . of _trust_, because if there's one thing he's learned from us, Albus, it is betrayal. Most of all, how much crueler a blow that disloyalty is from someone you believed in."

"I misled him. I admit that and I'm sorry, but I can't take it back."

"No. You chose, Albus. Whether for good or ill, that decision was made fifteen years ago, and it's set in stone. Now it's time to step back and let him choose."

"He's stronger than even I would have ever suspected, Severus. For all the disciplinary problems he's had this year, his teachers say he's advanced far beyond the coursework they've set. He's lazing about in classes because they're teaching him nothing he doesn't already know. I wonder why that is, Severus?" If not an outright accusation, it was headed in that direction.

"He came to me . . perhaps three months ago, and asked me to teach him Occlumency," Snape admitted. It was time someone knew, he supposed. Harry was nearly ready; another three weeks and Severus knew Potter would go with or without his blessing, and Snape had little confidence in his ability to detain the boy if Harry seriously wanted to leave. "I don't know why I agreed. But I did, and since I'd gone that far, there was nothing to stop me from teaching him everything I knew."

"The Dark Arts?"

"He needed to know, Albus. I won't argue the point with you, because deep down you know it too. The Dark Lord is careful . . . to careful to be killed by any ordinary means."

"You've made him into a warrior, Severus. Do you even know what he's capable of, at this point?"

Snape shrugged. "Anything. I wouldn't put anything past him, not now. And whether you like to admit it or not, you _need_ a warrior. Now you have one, and you don't even have to put up with the guilt of teaching him the way of Darkness yourself. Because you'd have done it, Albus. In time, you would have done it because _there is no other way_. Not if you want him to survive the Dark Lord's death. And I don't know about you . . . but I do."

**

* * *

**

Albus entered the hospital wing to find the boy sitting at Nymphadora's bedside. "Harry." Albus touched his shoulder lightly, and the boy winced away from his touch. "Harry, Madame Pomfrey needs to apply more of the potion. And as it will be . . . painful, I think it's time you left. We're doing all we can for . . Tonks."

"Don't bother," Harry said softly and Albus leaned over to hear more clearly. "I saw what they did to her. You can't save her, Professor. She was dead from the moment they got their hands on her. It was only a matter of time."

"Harry, you can't be sure . . .?"

"I'm sure." Harry paused, sank his teeth into his lip so hard he tasted blood. There was nothing he could do. He'd been testing his own influence in Voldemort's visions since the previous summer, when Voldemort's attacks had become a nightly occurrence; it was all that kept him sane. Under Snape's tutelage, he made progress in leaps and bounds. No, he couldn't save them, but he'd held Shacklebolt's hand tonight as Voldemort had repeatedly applied the Cruciatus Curse. And when the Killing Curse had been applied after hours of torture, Harry had wept as the Death Eaters around him chanted their master's name.

They couldn't see him – not the Death Eaters. Voldemort knew he was there, but couldn't break Harry's Occlumency shields, couldn't quite _reach_ him. Harry had at last managed to make himself visible to Voldemort's prisoners, but it took its toll on him. He could comfort them, even give them some slight shielding from Voldemort's spells, but for all that he was present only in spirit, not in body. It seemed as if his magical abilities didn't make the transition with him, and so he couldn't help them, only sit with them as they waited for their turn to die. The Death Eaters' spells couldn't touch him – four nights ago he'd cradled Lavendar Brown's three-year-old sister on his lap as Lucius applied the Killing Curse and the little body went limp in Harry's arms. He'd felt Voldemort's eyes on him for the first time, and for a long moment he'd stayed where he was, staring up into Voldemort's eyes as his tears fell.

Severus didn't understand. He'd have said it was too dangerous, would have refused to tutor Harry further had he realized exactly what his young protégé was doing with the lessons he'd been teaching. But what Snape didn't know couldn't hurt him.

"Tonks," Harry murmured, reaching forward to gently squeeze her hand. He knew she could hear him, just as he knew the pain was overwhelming all her other senses.

"'Arry?" Her voice was soft to the point of unintelligible. "Where . . ."

"You're at Hogwarts, Tonks." The tears welled up in his eyes but he didn't let them fall. Not when she was the one who'd suffered. "You're safe."

"They di'n't get you?" she mumbled, and Harry shook his head, conscious of Dumbledore's abrupt shift in position beside him.

"No, Tonks. I'm okay."

"Were there," she managed to gasp out at last, and Harry's fingers tightened on hers.

"Only in spirit," he said softly. "I wasn't really there."

"Could _see_ you," she insisted.

"I know. But my body's not really there . . . just my mind."

"Wanna sleep," she continued.

"I know," Harry whispered, even as his body tensed. Snape called it empathy; Harry called it a pain in the ass. But, however you chose to say it, Harry could sense the emotions of the people around it. A natural kind of Legilimency, Severus had explained, and very probably the reason the mental arts came to him so easily. Which was yet another reason the dementors had flocked to him in third year – he acted, in a way, as a kind of conduit for the feelings of those around him. Now, the pain coursing through Tonks's body made it all he could to remain conscious and coherent, and the actual physical contact only heightened the sensation. But she needed his comfort, and he would not deny her that.

"It'll be okay. I understand." And he did, more than she would ever know.

He held her hand as her breathing grew more shallow, the pause between each indrawn breath longer. Albus sat beside him in silence, and Harry allowed himself a fleeting moment of gratitude toward the aging headmaster. Her heart stumbled once, twice, and she turned her head to meet his eyes.

"They love you, Harry," she told him, and he felt her sincerity, her urgency. "They always will."

"Thank you," he whispered, and her fingers clenched on his for an instant. He felt it, the moment her heart stopped and her spirit fled the pain of a mortal body. And for a moment, as her peace washed through his mind, he wished he could follow. But destiny demanded a higher price from him than death.

"You didn't die for nothing, Tonks." Harry stood, ran his palm gently over her face. And deeper than the pain, he felt her peace. "I'll take him down, any way I have to. And when he dies, your name will be the last thing he hears. I promise."

"Harry . . ." Dumbledore reached for him. Harry avoided his touch, but those light blue eyes had seen too much. "What have you done?"

"I can't save them," Harry said again. "But I am with them. I feel them die. And you think that hasn't changed me? Do you really think I don't realize just how much is riding on me? I know, Professor. And sometimes, I wonder if it would have been best if the Dursleys had managed to beat the magic out of me, as they once believed they could."

"Harry, I didn't _know_."

"You didn't _see_," Harry corrected. "You refused to, because what does that say about me, that I meekly took being beaten by my bastard of an uncle for almost eleven years? What kind of faith does that inspire?" Harry ran his fingers over the thin scar across his cheek, put there only six months ago by the plate Dudley had thrown at him. And knew his chances of surviving Voldemort's death were slim to none. "I won't be your hero, because I wouldn't fight him, not for you. I don't know if I _can_ do what you need me to. But for her?" He gestured to Tonks – "For her, and for those like her, I will try. I won't _let_ myself fail. Because if I do, I make her sacrifice meaningless."

Harry turned for the door as Severus Snape walked through it. He took one look at the boy's face and shook his head. "You shouldn't have come," Severus murmured.

"Do you really think I could have stayed away?"

"No," Snape agreed. And when Dumbledore would have followed Harry out of the room, he put a hand on Albus's shoulder to stay him. "Leave him alone," he said in response to Albus's questioning look. "It takes so much out of him, his visions, and being in contact with her would be worse."

"She spoke as though she thought Voldemort had somehow captured Harry. As though he was there, with her, while she was being tortured. But that's not possible."

"Albus. . ." Snape hesitated. It wasn't his secret to tell, but Dumbledore's words had only confirmed his own suspicions. "Albus, he's an empath. He doesn't only feel the emotions of those around him, but in his visions as well. He's an excellent Occlumens, but you can't block empathy that way, not as strong as he is in that regard. I don't know what he's doing in his visions, but if Tonks could see him . . ." Severus trailed off, but the implications were clear. If Tonks, untrained in the mental arts, could see Harry as a corporeal figure, Voldemort would have to know that Harry's influence in the visions they shared was growing, might be able to do him harm while he was trapped in the images Voldemort was projecting.

"Something has to be done," Albus said at last.

Snape snorted. "What? I trained him well enough that neither of us could pry the truth from his stubborn head, and he won't submit to Veritaserum. I know that, even if you don't."

"Talk to him, Severus." At Snape's disbelieving look, he continued. "He trust you. He doesn't have that same confidence in me – " the hurt was there in his eyes – "and he wouldn't want to burden his friends. But from what I saw tonight, the two of you have been concealing the fact that you've been training him for far longer than I would have believed possible. He has to trust you; the mental arts require that, if you did teach him those."

"All right. I'll try. But he's more than able to keep his own council, Albus. He's . . . more Slytherin than I knew."

"I could ask no more of you. I just hope it's not too late . . for all of us."


	3. Falling into Fate

**Chapter 3**

He found the boy at last on the roof of the Astronomy tower, with Granger's hideous ginger cat in his lap and a phoenix on his shoulder. Fawkes had always been fond of Potter, inordinately so. But considering just how much the kid got himself into, perhaps having a phoenix looking after him was the best Albus could do.

"Professor," Harry murmured in greeting as Severus stepped out onto the roof cautiously and sat down next to him. "Afraid of heights?"

"I was never at home in the skies, the way you are," Snape admitted. "I am sure you heard how Longbottom finally found his magic?" he asked, after a moment.

"Yeah. Dropped out a window by a bloody bunch of idiots."

"It's a tried and true method of magical testing, for pureblooded children, if one takes the necessary precautions. But I was only three when my father did the same to me . . . and there wasn't anyone waiting to catch me at the end of the drop if my magic didn't kick in."

Harry was silent for a long moment. "Bit of a bastard, your father." He reached into a pocket of his robes and withdrew a pack of cigarettes, offering one to Snape, who growled.

"There's no cure for cancer, even in the magical world," Severus said, harshly, and Harry shrugged.

"If Voldemort doesn't kill me, one of his followers will, long before my bad habits catch up with me." Harry held the cigarette between his fingers, unlit, as he looked out over the sleeping castle and the grounds beyond. "Most children, even when they're very young, have this . . . this notion of what they'd like to be when they grow up. By this point in our lives, we're expected to know for sure, at least in a general sense. But even now, I can't imagine life as a adult, can't picture myself as anything, really. And I wonder if that's because, in a way, I've known all my life that I won't _have_ to make that decision. That I won't live long enough to need to."

"That's . . morbid."

"But accurate, wouldn't you say?" Harry countered, touching the cigarette briefly to Fawkes' feathers and smiling faintly as it lit.

"Not necessarily. Not unless you wished it."

"It's never been about what I wanted, Sev. Just about what the rest of you wanted from me." Harry paused. "Perhaps it's best that way. Better me than someone else, to be sure."

"You haven't done anything worthy of death, Harry. Take it from someone who knows."

"Then why they haunt me still?"

Severus didn't answer. He didn't have one. "Brandy?" he said at last, producing a pair of glasses and a bottle.

"Sure."

* * *

Harry opened his eyes and stared blearily at the ceiling . . . closed them again as the dim light sent pain spiking through his skull. "Shit."

"You look it," Snape said from somewhere to his left. Harry wasn't about to open his eyes to check for sure. He heard Snape's soft snort of disdain, followed by a murmured, "_Nox_." Then: "You really shouldn't drink, Potter. 'S bad for you."

"You offered," Harry protested, tenatively opening his eyes again. The only light poured from beneath a closed door down the hallway, and he sighed in relief. He couldn't rouse himself enough to put any coherent thought into determining where he was. "I'd be right enough too if you'd give me a bit of that hangover potion you make for Pomphrey."

"And if I don't happen to keep any in my private quarters?"

"First, you're a fucking hypocrite, or a masochist, one. Second, you're a damned, lying, _heartless_ bastard to deny a dying man his cure," Harry retorted without a pause, taking the news that he was currently ensconced in Snape's rooms in stride.

"And it would be difficult to explain to the headmaster just _why_ your dead body was found in my quarters," Snape admitted, dangling a tiny glass vial over Harry's face.

"Just hand it to me," Harry muttered, cradling his head in his hands. "If I let go of my head, it might well fall off."

"You're a terrible drunk, Potter." Snape pushed the little bottle into his hands, watched in silence as the boy gulped down the green potion it contained. "Harry," he said, more gently, "Dumbledore's arranged Tonks' funeral for Saturday." He saw the boy wince, and fought down his own sense of grief. "He'll allow you to go."

"Well, that's big of him."

"He didn't have to make the offer."

"She didn't have to die, Severus." Harry turned, and Snape read in his eyes a maturity a boy of sixteen should never have to possess. The inappropriateness of the familiar address never registered; it was an adult looking back at him, not a student. . . not a child. "I was _there_. I could have saved her. I should have."

"Did you try?" Snape asked levelly, and Harry glared at him.

"Damn you, you know I did!"

"Then you did all you could. _It's not possible_."

"_It has to be_!"

"Why? Because you're the omnipotent Harry Potter? That excuse just doesn't fly anymore. _You're not God_. They're not dying for you! They are dying because they believe the Dark Lord is _wrong_. This war began before you were even born, and will in all likelihood continue long after you and I and all of us are dead and forgotten. It's not about _you_, or _him_, or some prophecy made by a washed-up, pathetic excuse for a Seer! It's about the very basic difference between Light and Dark, good and evil, and nothing you can say or do will ever change the way the world _works_."

Harry was silent for a long moment. And when he looked up at Snape, his green eyes were suspiciously blank. "He's going to kill me. I _know_ that. And I can't bring myself to care."

"Believe that, Potter, and you _will_ die the next time you face him – and that will be sooner than any of us would wish, I suspect."

"What would you have me do? The connection between us is strong . . . more than it ever was. Each time I have a vision, it feels as though he forced more of his evil into me. I'm not a good person, Severus. I lost my faith in humanity early; the Dursleys taught me that. And every night, I watch his victims die, and it's worse now than it ever was before, because it feels as if I could help them . . . if I only wanted it enough. I'm afraid of him, Sev. Not of what he can do to me physically – my mind would shatter before he broke my body to pieces, and I would die hating him long before I stopped breathing. I would escape him before he wished to grant me the release of death, and count myself lucky for it. But I am so afraid that if I stood before him, hating him this much, he could turn me into what he is. And I would rather die by my own hand . . ." Harry paused, considered. "I have thought of that," he admitted. "The bond between us kept him alive when he was little but a spirit. My blood brought him back to life. I've wondered since my fourth year if he would die when I did."

"That's ridiculous," Snape muttered, but there was little conviction in his words . . . only pain, and a compassion he'd believed he no longer had.

"Is it? He's had a dozen chances to kill me already, and yet he hesitates, each time. Why, Sev? Why does he balk, when if that prophecy is true, I am the only true threat to him?"

"He doesn't know the prophecy."

"He knows there is one, and more than that, he _hates_ me. It's the only genuine emotion I've ever seen in him. It would be easy to kill me, if only because his hatred of me overrules his better judgment. And yet, if I tried it, and I was wrong, he would become immortal in a very real sense."

"Damned if you do, damned if you don't." Snape nodded his agreement.

"Yeah." Harry looked at his watch, and with an apologetic smile, turned to go. He paused in the doorway. "I was damned from the moment I was born, Professor. I don't expect salvation . . . he shares my soul, and my only consolation is that I will drag him to hell with me. One way or another." And in a swish of black fabric, he was gone.

* * *

"Harry, where were you last night?" Hermione demanded, tapping at his shoulder to retain his attention. She and Ron had waited up all night for him, only to have him come slinking in at dawn, looking so exhausted and haggard she doubted he'd slept at all. It wasn't a rare occurrence; he'd pulled an all-nighter like this one before. But she'd never seen him look quite so . . . beaten.

"Tonks is dead, 'Mione."

"Tonks?" Ron sat up, shifting from half-dozing to full alertness at the flat statement. "How . ."

"Another vision?" Hermione asked, stroking Harry's arm, trying to soothe his anger, and somehow ease the pain.

"Yes. I knew she was dying, and yet . . . They found her too late, and I sat beside her in the Infirmary last night, held her hand as she died. And somehow, I thought each death would hurt a little less. But it doesn't." Harry knew his teeth were chattering, his chin quivering as he fought back the tears. The alcohol had spared him this last night, and he knew it was better that he faced it now, with the bright light of morning making it feel like little more than a horrific dream. Snape had given him time, but the wounds had only been cauterized . . not healed. He bit down on his lower lip so hard he broke the skin in a futile effort to hide his weakness. They didn't need that from him. For an instant he was sure it had worked; the pain centered him, held him steady even as it felt like he was falling apart.

He swallowed hard, and the metallic taste in his mouth made him gag as he recalled Voldemort's laughter -- _his_ laughter – as the auror's blood splattered his face. His mind was no longer than secure haven it had once been, not since his empathic gifts had become readily apparent during his training with Snape. He was dying inside, little by little . . . and there were days when he woke with blood on his hands, and no real explanation for how it got there. There were nights when the screams of the damned and dying nearly drove him mad. But he hid it, and if every now and then it all became too much, no one ever saw the scars.

"Oh, Harry."

He permitted her touch because he felt she needed it, not because it offered him any comfort. Hermione was a tactile, loving individual; she would never understand the kind of life that made him flinch away from human contact. He hoped she would never have to. Ironic, that he wouldn't wish this life on his worst enemy, when Voldemort had already lived it.

"It'll be alright, mate," said Ron awkwardly. "Someday."

"Why me?" Harry asked, despondently, and Ron smiled wryly.

"Because you're . . . . you're Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived."

"Well, nobody bloody asked me if I wanted my mum to sacrifice herself for me, did they?"

No one replied to that. In silence they settled down again – Ron stretching full length on one of the couchs, Hermione swaying slightly in a rocking chair, Harry sprawled out on his stomach in front of the fire. Maybe there was no answer to that. Only the silent tears of a boy who'd been taught not to cry, and the soft sobs of an auburn angel.

* * *

Harry didn't look up as the shadow fell over him and the Gryffindor table – ever boisterous – went uncharacterically silent in anticipation of the coming explosion. Any occasion Draco Malfoy took to make his presence known to the Gryffindors in so obvious a venue as the Great Hall carried with it the potential for one hell of a duel, and there wasn't a student present who would miss it.

"Malfoy." Harry offered the off-hand greeting without looking up from the _Daily Prophet_. When Draco didn't respond, Harry dropped the paper on the table and turned around, looking up at the other boy with a hint of exasperation. "Can I help you with something? Like, I don't know, getting your father out of prison, perhaps? No, wait. I _put_ him there, that's right. Sorry 'bout that, by the way. Wouldn't want you to have to muddle your way through school without daddy dictating your every move." Harry frowned. "You _can_ think, can't you?" he said in apparent interest, as Draco's face flushed with fury. "On your own, I mean. But then, you have Voldemort to tell you what to do, now. I will tell you, Malfoy, you aren't going to make a very good Death Eater. Your father wasn't either. Must run in the family, hmm?" Without waiting for Malfoy's answer, he resumed perusing the paper.

"You _will_ pay for what you did to my father. He won't stay in Azkaban for long. The Dark Lord will reward his loyalty."

Harry paused, folded the newpaper carefully and handed it over to Hermione, murmuring a brief prayer of thanks that Ron hadn't come downstairs yet. His best friend's violatile temper would only have made this worse. "Has it ever occurred to you, Malfoy, to wonder just who Voldemort was before he became an evil bastard?"

"He is the only heir to our Lord Slytherin," Draco answered, and despite himself, he was curious to know just what Potter thought he was getting at.

"True enough. But to be perfectly honest, your master is nothing more than a half-blood Slytherin boy who grew up in an orphanage and decided to fuck over the world when he grew up because his childhood sucked. He's just an egotistical, self-proclaimed lord of _nothing_ who happens to have a certain theatrical flair and a gift for the Unforgiveables. He's nothing special. He's suckered you into believing he is, that's all."

Snape, listening from his seat beside the headmaster's, had the odd and almost uncontrollable urge to applaude Potter's clearheadedness. It staggered him, to hear the Dark Lord so ruthlessly slandered and brought down to the status of merely mortal by the biting words and keen wit of a sixteen-year-old boy. He looked at Malfoy, and felt a flicker of pity for the confusion and outrage on the boy's face. Draco would learn the hard way that Potter was right, but perhaps Potter's forthright analysis of Voldemort's failings would make a least a few of his Slytherins rethink their decision to join their parents in Voldemort's ranks. With the faintest of smiles playing about his lips, he leaned back in his seat to watch the confrontation. "Get 'im, Potter," he murmured beneath his breath, and his grin only widened when Minerva glanced at him in bemused surprise at his words

"He'll get you for that," Draco hissed in his most malevolent manner, blinking in surprise when Harry laughed.

"Oh, yeah, I can just see the headlines now – '_Voldemort sues Boy-Who-Lived for slander_'. Merlin, Malfoy, where have you _been_? Your master would like nothing more than to kill me. I'd happily return the favor, myself. I'm pretty sure he knows I think he's a slimeball, and a bit mad besides. Matter of fact, I don't think he cared, and the feeling is more than mutual. And," he added with a glance at his watch, "I'm about to be late for Transfiguration. I believe we're learning human to animal transformations today. So, ferret, I believe I'll be on my way."

Potter grabbed his bag off the floor and rose, stepping past Draco, headed for the stairs.

"I heard your godfather screamed like a girl as he fell through the veil."

Severus was moving before the words even fully registered, desperate to keep Harry from doing something he likely wouldn't regret later. He knew what Potter was capable of, now. After several months of intensive one-on-one training in the Chamber of Secrets, Snape was quite certain that Harry could take down the average Death Eater with very little difficulty. Merlin knows he wasn't sure how much more he could teach the boy. Potter was matching him curse for curse now in their duels; the boy's natural apititude for magic and seeker's reflexes made him an incredible opponent. But if Potter _crucio_-ed Draco in the middle of the Great Hall, there would be hell to pay for both of them.

Harry went for Draco with fire blazing in his eyes, but he never quite forgot where he was, and who was watching. His first punch broke the Slytherin boy's nose and sent him sprawling on the floor, scrambling to get away. The Gryffindor table was closest, but not a man moved as Harry grabbed Malfoy by the collar of his robes and slammed him up against the wall.

"_You are out of your league_," Harry said in a deadly snarl.

"My father will—"

"Your father will die in Azkaban, because he is guilty as sin and probably already mad. I'd wager that someday, sooner than you think, Fudge will tire of the escape attempts, and just have the whole lot of them Kissed. And when that dementor comes for Lucius . . ." Harry's eyes nearly glowed with malice and anticipation – "When they stand over him and prepare to feast on his black soul, it'll be his turn to scream. And there won't be a person in the world, 'cept you, who cares."

"_Potter_!" Snape's roar of rage echoed through the room. Harry winced as he saw the Potions Master bearing down on him, but didn't say a word as he was dragged out of the hall past a staring and befuddled Ron, and down toward the dungeons and Snape's private lair.

"What was that about?" Ron asked the room at large as he sat down in Harry's place at the Gryffindor table.

"Harry's opinion of You-Know-Who," Seamus said.

"Well, then." Ron considered that.

"And he broke Malfoy's nose, too," Dean added with a hint of wistful humor, watching as Draco was led upstairs to the infirmary by a remarkably brusque Madam Pomfrey.

"That's alright then," Ron said agreeably, and the rest of dinner passed without further incident.

* * *

Remus Lupin was cursing the moon as he staggered downstairs, toward the Great Hall. Not that this was an unusual state of affairs; it was perfectly normal for Remus to spend much of his forced stay in the hospital wing after a transformation cursing said astral body. It was a familiar ritual, and in times like these, he found a certain comfort in it. But this Change had been difficult – the stress, he supposed. But when Voldemort was prowling the streets with his little pack of cutthroat killers, he doubted anyone was sleeping well.

His keen hearing caught the faint sound of voices outside the Hall, and frowned in slight puzzlement as he recognized them as belonging to Severus and Harry. "Damn," he murmured, quickened his step in instinctive response to the sound of his pup in danger. He smiled wryly as he realized the way he'd phrased the thought, but thanked God that the wolf inside him had seemingly obeyed his own familial feelings for Harry and accepted the boy as pack, both through Prongs and Padfoot. Not, of course, that he would ever deliberately pit that pack instinct against the werewolf's hate for humans, but it was reassuring just the same.

"Snape, damn you to the darkest depths of Hell," Remus snarled as he rounded the corner and found himself face to face with the object of his displeasure. He noticed Harry's eyes widening, in response to his cursing, he supposed, but he couldn't help it. He was feeling surly, and exhausted, and downright _wolfish_ yet, and it seemed to him that every time he turned around Harry was in trouble again, in detention with the Potions master. Poor kid probably never had a free moment, between classes and Snape the Slimeball and Voldemort-induced dreams, and Remus personally thought it sucked. Bad enough that Harry had been told about the prophecy – and Dumbledore had taken some flak from damn near everyone who knew 'bout that – and been forced to take advanced DADA lessons all summer, in Sirius's house no less. By Merlin, the kid shouldn't have to deal with unfairly biased professors too, and frankly, Lupin was through with Snape's irrational disdain for Harry. He'd ignored it, or gently interfered and drawn Severus's fire, up to now. But he'd had enough.

He opened his mouth to let loose with a tirade that would have Snape's ears ringing for a week, when he noticed the amused glance Harry sent Snape's way. It wasn't the cruel humor Remus expected, of the 'nah, nah, nah, nah, nah' variety, but felt more friendly than that, as if he expected Snape to join him in the joke. And Remus shut his mouth with an audible click. "What in hell is up with you?" he demanded, glaring at first one, then the other.

Harry was struggling not to laugh. It wasn't necessarily a good situation, per say – Snape had really wanted to hang on to his badass, Potter-hating reputation for a bit longer at least. But Remus was a member of the Order, and therefore privy to all kinds of ultra-top-secret information already. And Moony knew him extremely well, could read him as well or better than Ron or even Hermione. Perceptive, Remus was, and Snape knew it too. That, he expected, and the realization that they had to tell someone what they'd been doing before Harry actually marched out the door to go duel Voldemort, was the reason Snape didn't fight it, but instead conceded with relative grace.

"_Potter_." Snape sighed, ran a hand through his hair. "Never try to lie to the Dark Lord; he'll see right through you."

"_Right,_" Harry agreed. "Didn't figure on talking to him a whole helluva lot anyway, but thanks for the advice." But that dark reminder of his reasons for these private lessons sobered him, and it was with a solemn expression that he turned to Lupin. "Moony, who can you think of, other than me, who truly understands and has spend some time in Voldemort's presence?"

"Maybe you should start from the beginning," Remus suggested, but the light was already dawning.

"Excellent place to begin," said Snape blandly.

"It's simple, really," Harry began, taking a deep breath. He really didn't think Remus was going to like this. "I have to kill him – Voldemort. At least destroy his body, if not his soul. But I can't exactly do that with the spells I've learned up to now; they're no good for dueling, not in a life or death situation. And if I intend to try to destroy him entirely, black soul and all, I needed help. Someone who wouldn't give me away, who knew Voldemort even better than I did . . . who no one would suspect. I've beeen training with Snape for months now, in everything from dueling to Occlumency to the Dark Arts." Harry paused, met Lupin's eyes steadily. "I don't know if I can kill him, Remus," he said, very softly. "But I am damn sure going to try."

"_Merlin_, Harry . . . I know Albus mentioned that prophecy to you, but . . . I didn't think you'd take it so literally, so fast. And if . . if you were going to come to one of us for help, why not Minerva, or Albus, or _me_? You're already dealing with one devil on quite a regular basis. You really don't need another."

"McGonagall would never have taken me seriously. You . . . I'm not sure you would have found it in you, Remus, to teach me, knowing all the while that at the end of that training, you'd be sending me out to die. And as I'm sure you've noticed, Dumbledore and I have parted ways – in many things."

"I noticed," Lupin admitted. "I thought the rift between you would heal, if not of its own accord, then out of a mutual desire to see Voldemort defeated."

"Defeated," sneered Harry. "_Dead_, you mean. Don't pretty it up, Remus. We both want him dead . . . you just try to make it sound better. Dumbledore, perhaps, believes there is something of the boy he was in Voldemort still . . I don't care. Tom Riddle made his choices, and there can be no salvation for the man he became. Either he lives, or I do. There are no other options."

"Potter, do you always have to be so damn dramatic?" Severus asked, wavering between disapproval and amusement.

"I have to be honest. My chances of survival aren't good even here, and the very castle itself looks after me. I was dead the moment that prophecy was made . . . I'm just living on borrowed time."

"Jesus." Remus turned away, sickened by the calm rationality in his pup's words.

"I could lie to you, Remus. And for all that Sev isn't reacting, he cares." Harry smiled faintly when Snape snorted but didn't protest. "But it thought it would better for all of us if I made it clear from the beginning that I don't expect to survive my next meeting with Voldemort. Even if I did . . . what kind of life would I have, living away from everyone I knew, unable to be part of this world for fear of the remaining Death Eaters. I won't live like that. I won't try."


	4. Prelude to Disaster

_a creature made of sunshine, her eyes were like the sky  
__rabbit howls like something old as we twitch to a lullaby  
__the Scalpel shines in god's sunshine, the streetlights whisper pain  
__and down here near the poison stream our god has gone insane_

_**

* * *

**_

It was raining, the day they buried her. Not the soft rain that heralds the coming of spring, nor the savage beauty of a storm, but a cold, bitter dizzle that made Harry shiver as he watched them fill in the grave. The aurors around him murmured brief condolences to the family, words muted, fading into the rhythmic patter of water on the grass. Snape stood beside him, silent, the way he always was in moments such as these. He had no notion of sanctity, no idea that death should be anything more than this . . . a quiet funeral in an empty cemetery, the end of a life heralded by the soft thump of dirt on the lid of the casket and the muffled words of men who saw in the ceremony their own impending demise.

"You don't cry for them . . not anymore."

Harry glanced up at the Potions Master with dry eyes. "It doesn't change anything. It doesn't make him stop."

"That doesn't mean it shouldn't matter."

"Do you think she would have wanted it to end this way?" he asked, in a voice too bitter to belong to a sixteen-year-old boy. "Do you think it matters to her, that we stand by her grave, that our remembrance of her will always be tied into _this_?" Harry reached down, took a handful of earth from beside the grave. "She's not here, Professor. What made her Tonks – what made her special – is already gone." He let the bit of dirt sift through his fingers. "This . . _ritual_ . . it isn't for her. It's for us."

"It finishes things, I suppose," Snape agreed. "Makes us face our own mortality, especially in times such as these."

"I don't want this," Harry said abruptly. He met his teacher's gaze squarely. "I don't need this. I don't want a funeral, or a memorial service, or anything like that. Just . . . just cremate me, and scatter the ashes across the Hogwarts' grounds, and let that be the end of it."

"Harry, that might not be possible. You really have no idea how much this world worships you, do you?"

"Sev, please."

"Fine! Jesus, all right." For a long moment, they were still, the rain blotting out the presence of the other mourners. "I'm not the person to ask, really. I will doubtless precede you in death by a number of years."

"It'll be in my will." Harry hesitated. "But if I fall, fighting him . . ."

"If by some miracle you die before I do, Potter, certainly, I will see to it." Snape's immediate assurance told them both how unlikely he thought _that_ would be.

"I'll hold you to that," Harry warned.

"What are you going to do, haunt me?" Snape returned with a hint of his usual sneer.

"Yes," said Harry confidently.

"Somehow, brat, I wouldn't put it past you." Snape paused. "Don't make me fulfill that promise, Harry."

"I'll try. But even if I killed Voldemort, the Death Eaters . . . ." Harry's voice trailed off.

"If you can kill the Dark Lord, his men should not be a problem."

"Not on their own. But he is never alone, these days, and I really doubt the Death Eaters are going to graciously give me time to recover my strength before attacking. Even if I got away that time, Sev, the danger wouldn't be over. Without him, his men would disband, for the most part. But the Lestranges and others who truly believe in Voldemort's ideas, or who simply have too much invested in it, like the Malfoys, won't waste any time trying to get rid of me. I won't hide forever; they are capable of waiting that long for vengeance. And so I will have that promise, Severus."

Snape took a deep breath, shaken by the boy's blunt appraisal of his own chances of survival. And for a moment, he cursed Voldemort for what he'd done to this child. But he saw truth in it too, and he nodded. "All right." Again he met Potter's emerald eyes, and he had never hated that snake-like bastard more in his life.

"He stole my life, Severus." Potter's words were so soft, Snape had to strain to hear them. "I won't let him have my soul."

For the first time in years, Snape felt tears well up in his eyes. But Death Eaters don't cry.

* * *

"_No_. You're not working hard enough. Again." 

Harry paused for a moment, panting. Ariane, coiled in a great ball of gleaming black scales on a rug in a corner, raised her head, woken not by the clang of the weaponry, but by the ceasing of it. Harry let the point of the Gryffindor sword fall to the stone floor, leaning on it as he rested. He was yet unaccustomed to the weight of it, and Snape was pushing him with a sort of desperate resolution that Harry hadn't felt from him in months. Tonks' funeral had unnerved the older man; Harry's grim predication had put a new urgency into each practice session. They both knew it was only a matter of time, and neither would dare to say it aloud. They talked rarely, now – the camaderie of the past days lost in the shadow of the approaching battle. Only Ariane could truly tell of the nights when Harry woke screaming, sobbing . . . and when she curled herself around him in a vain attempt to comfort, he didn't try to hide the tears.

"_Massster?"_ Ariane slithered from her mat and crossed the room to wind her heavy body loosely around his legs, raising her head far enough to meet his eyes. She'd grown, Harry thought absently, from a mere ten feet to nearly thirty. Regular meals had restored the gleam to her scales and the fire to her golden eyes; she would be more than a fair match for Nagini, when the time came. He worried about her still, for all that he knew she could take care of herself. A sixty-foot basilisk had been killed a week before, attempting to break into Gringotts – her brother. And for all that she was _his_, he'd begun to realize that keeping her with him might not be safe. He'd already acknowledged the necessity of introducing her to Dumbledore, who as yet had no knowledge of his pet – if something happened to him, and to Severus, he needed the Headmaster's assurance that the young basilisk would be allowed to leave the school unharmed. There was so much left to do, and so little time. His magic was still a little iffy when it came to casting the Unforgiveables, his visions warned of Voldemort's growing frustration, and the time would come, very soon, when Severus could no longer risk returning to Voldemort.

"Jesus." With a sigh, he sank down onto the floor, leaning against the basilisk, who draped her head over his shoulder and crooned her sympathies.

"If you give up this easy when it's just me, the Dark Lord won't have any trouble at all finishing you off." Snape's actions belied the harshness of his tone as he settled down beside Harry on the stone floor of the Chamber of Secrets.

"Then you'll just have to hope the bond between him and me goes deeper than a few shared dreams," Harry returned without rancor.

"What's wrong with you? If I didn't know better, I'd say you're giving up . . . just when we're so close to our first real chance to win this thing altogether."

Harry was silent for a moment. "Can we quit early today?" he asked at last. Snape's eyes narrowed at the bleakness in his voice as the boy went on. "There's a lot of things I need to take care of . . . and Voldemort could show up any day now."

_"You aren't going to die. I won't let you," _Ariane vowed quietly, picking up on his stress, and Harry stilled for an instant.

"_You must stay away from the fighting, cara,_" said Harry. "_It will not be safe._"

_"I will not let you go alone to that . . . that monssster."_

"_It's not your choice to make_." The snake refused to meet his eyes, and Harry sighed. Ariane was stubborn, and too assured of her worth in combat. She would be a great help to him, but allowing her to stay with him when he went forth to do battle with his demons contradicted every instinct he possessed. She was innocent . . . it was something different to risk himself. He was Chosen. He'd been marked – not by choice, but the scars remained just the same, and only the least of them was visible on his forehead.

"I suppose making this an early evening wouldn't hurt so much . . . not this once," Snape agreed. "The business you have to attend to . . . can I help?"

"It's personal, but thanks for the offer."

"Harry." Snape waited for the boy's eyes to focus on him before he went on. "Don't settle things so much that you no longer have a reason to come back. There are people here who love you . . . not all of us show it so much, but we still care."

"Thank you, Sev. I will try to take that advice. But remember this, too – if winning cost me the people I love, I would not survive to enjoy my victory. I wouldn't want to."

"Harry . . ." Severus suddenly couldn't find the words.

"Don't. Don't say anything."

"There's more to you than prophecy. That's not what makes us care."

"Of course it is. I have my father's face, my mother's eyes, and a scar that everyone says proves how much they loved me. But if they loved me so much, Sev . . . why couldn't I go with them? Why did they make me stay alone?"

"They wanted you to have the life they couldn't," Severus offered gently. "Your mother died to protect you, and her sacrifice saved you, because she loved you enough to give you up."

"I have to kill him, Sev. I have to. Because I can't imagine meeting them, wherever they are now, and telling them I failed." Silently Harry rose to his feet. "Ariane will show you out when you wish to leave," he said softly, and there was something so final in the words that Severus had to fight down the panic that rose inside him. Harry had become the son he'd never risked having, not when any child of his would have been pledged to the Dark Lord from the moment of its birth. It was so odd that he'd found his reason for survival in his archenemy's only legacy, he thought now. For a moment he saw James Potter again in Harry's face, and he paused. And a moment later, Harry had gone.


	5. Dark Horse

**Chapter 5**

Harry sighed, leaning over the highly polished handle of his broomstick. For a while, he'd considered buying another broom to use in the matches; he hadn't forgotten the misfortune that had befallen his trusty Nimbus 2000, and couldn't bear to risk damaging the Firebolt Sirius had bought him. Remus had pointed out the ridiculousness of this. Sirius would be overjoyed to know that the broom was being used against Slytherin – would want it to be a source of joy to Harry, not some kind of warped shrine.

And so Saturday evening found the Boy-Who-Lived flying in lazy circles above the Pitch on the aforementioned Firebolt, watching Ron bark orders at the rest of the team. Ron was a hard taskmaster, Harry mused, and unlike Oliver, didn't seem inclined to let Harry play however he liked. Ron was an excellent strategist, and a bloody good captain, but he didn't know a thing about playing Seeker – what pointers he gave were invariably useless. Harry wasn't about to mention this to his best friend, of course.

Harry had taken it upon himself to keep watch over the area when the team was out; Voldemort's attacks were growing increasingly closer to Hogwarts, and Snape had expressed some concern over this shift in tactics. He lacked evidence enough to ask Dumbledore to bar the students from playing their sport, but he'd asked Harry to stay alert, and be prepared for the battle that seemed to draw nearer with each passing day.

Ginny let out a yell, and Harry nearly fell off his broom before realizing that her cry had been one of victory, not terror.

"Jumpy, Potter," he scolded himself. He rubbed at the sore muscles of his neck and resumed his laps. "And no wonder. Snape's more paranoid than _Moody_," he groused, and grinned. It was so clearly true that when he'd made a similar statement in training on Thursday, Snape hadn't bothered with denial. The Potions master had merely muttered, "Well, he must be doing something right – he's still alive, after all," and Harry had been forced to agree.

A brief flash of movement caught his eye, and he fell into a Wronski Feint as Ron waved the rest of the team to the ground, wrenching out of the dive only inches from the ground and tumbling off his broom onto the grass. He lay there on his back, panting, until Ginny's face swam into view above him.

"All right, Harry?"

"Yeah. Just tired."

"Tell me about it," she said, and rolled her eyes. "And to think I used to feel bad for you when Oliver would call the lot of you out every now and then to practice in the rain. _We _never seem to practice on a clear day!"

"Today's not bad." Harry glanced down at his robes and grimaced. "Well, it didn't seem so bad when I was actually flying in it." The thick mist they'd been playing in had soaked into their Quidditch robes and Ginny had begun to shiver in the rapidly cooling air.

"Oh, look," she said abruptly, gesturing toward the forest, and Harry whirled, drawing his wand. Ginny shook her head. "No, it's . . . just the thestrals."

Harry narrowed his eyes, barely able to pick out the shadowy horse-like figures through the mist and distance. He hadn't mentioned his Animagus abilities to his friends. McGonagall and Dumbledore knew he'd succeeded in completing the transformation, but only Severus knew what form he took.

Ginny knew of his fascination with the thestrals, even if she could not fathom its real cause, and she shooed him toward the animals now with an indulgent smile.

"We'll wait on you," she said, and went to change.

Harry walked across the pitch toward them, and the horses gathered around him. He ran with them, sometimes, when he couldn't sleep. How they recognized him in human form he didn't know, but he appreciated their acceptance just the same.

"Hey, Shadow," he murmured as the young stallion nuzzled at his chest, demanding attention. "Good to see you again." He scratched obligingly at the horse's ears. He'd gotten used to the skeletal look of the animals, and no longer flinched away when those eerie pale eyes met his. "What's wrong? Hagrid not fed you yet?"

The stallion tossed his head and bared his fangs, as though to say he was more than capable of catching his own dinner.

"Yeah, okay, stupid question. But—What in holy hell . . . ." He saw the red sparks from across the pitch, and paused – probably only another of Ginny's pranks. "She's taken over from the twins admirably," he said to Shadow, but didn't look away. The stallion's ears pricked, angling forward, and Harry froze as green light flashed across the pitch. Only one spell cast that deadly glow . . .

Harry didn't remember running to them. It seemed only an instant passed between seeing that tell-tale green light and kneeling beside the still form of the new Chaser – a third-year girl whose name he couldn't seem to recall. It seemed somehow sacreligious, falling to his knees beside her body with tears already welling in his eyes, when for the life of him he couldn't think of her name.

"_Accio _wand!"

For a moment he couldn't move, just stared up at the masked Death Eaters who'd taken away his last means of defense with those two little words. It was over . . . _he _was over.

"_Harry_!" Ginny's voice rose above the sounds of battle, tinged with panic. And abruptly he realized he wasn't as helpless as they all believed.

He made the Change on sheer will and desperation, called the animal inside him to the surface even through the face of paralyzing terror. And as the animal form took over, his fear ebbed. The thestral knew no fear of these puny humans, with their feeble, flailing limbs and loud voices. They had tried to take his family from him, and that would not be tolerated.

Harry reared, screaming his challenge to the heavens as he charged the men in front of him. There was no time to reconsider what the animal instincts inside him were telling him to do, no time to marvel at his own brutality before he was on them. He ripped out the throat of the first – somehow he'd forgotten that the creature he'd become was no mere horse, but a predator. He stomped viciously on the fallen Death Eaters, felt the bones crunch beneath his hooves. He couldn't remember how many he'd already killed – _too many,_ the human side of his brain warned – but he couldn't stop himself. He turned, looking for Ron and Ginny, and realized just how formidable the odds were against him. The Death Eaters were swarming the pitch; his friends had probably already been taken, and without their presence to guide him, he lost control.

His call had summoned the other thestrals from the Forest, and with them, Dumbledore and the other professors.

"Dear _Merlin_," Snape hissed, pausing for an instant at the edge of the Pitch, stunned by the carnage laid out before him. He'd not seen such a slaughter since first joining the Death Eaters at the height of Voldemort's reign. He saw the black horses, knew that one of them had to be Harry, but couldn't quite fathom the boy he knew instigating such a massacre.

"Don't hit the thestrals!" he ordered, his voice carrying easily to the other teachers. "One of them is Harry!"

"_Severus, help_!" One of the Death Eaters was running toward him, and as Snape hesitated, the largest of the thestrals broke off from the battle and went for the fleeing man.

"Harry, _no_!" Severus stepped in front of the panicking Death Eater, but he wasn't protecting the man behind him so much as he was Harry. Potter might be caught up in the animal's bloodlust now, but knowing he'd killed a cowering and defeated man was something entirely different than self-defense. It would destroy him, Sev knew, and understood too how great a thing he risked. If Harry didn't falter . . . if the animal took over and killed Severus for denying it its intended prey . . . .

The thestral slid to a halt only inches from Severus. It wavered, white eyes wild, muzzle dripping with the enemy's blood. "Harry," Sev said softly, and the great beast turned away, called back the attacking animals.

"_Traitor_," the Death Eater he'd shielded hissed in the cultured tones of Lucius Malfoy, shoving Snape out of the way and slicing out at the stallion's face with a dagger. Harry reared up again, and those huge hooves came down with thunderous force.

"You alright?" Snape asked, dusting himself off without a second look at the trampled mess that had once been his boyhood companion.

Harry shifted back. "I think so." The thestrals trotted to him, and one rested its head on his shoulder, crooning softly in sympathy. Absently he stroked the soft hide. "Did they get—"

"The Weasleys?" Snape finished for him, and shook his head. "I don't know. We should wait for Albus, and then, if they've been taken, we'll see what can be done."

"I should go after them—" Harry began.

Severus cut him off. "No. You're exhausted, and injured, and wouldn't do them a bit of good, flying around in this condition. You don't even know where they've been taken."

Harry reached back, clutching at the thestral's back for support, but he couldn't seem to steady himself. He saw Snape's eyes widen in surprise as he crumpled to the ground without another word, leaning back against the horse's foreleg. "Shadow," he murmured; the stallion lowered its head to look him in the eyes. "Find them," he whispered, putting every ounce of strength he had into making the animal understand what he wanted. "Please . . ."

Shadow nudged him gently, and nickered in response, backing away. And then Severus was beside him, supporting him, and Albus Dumbledore's voice came from somewhere behind him, the words hushed: "Severus, what's happened to him?"

"Hagrid," Harry managed to say, fighting to explain what he'd learned from a brief scan of Malfoy's dying mind. Snape hadn't wasted all this time teaching him Legilimency for nothing. "They brought daggers . . . for the giant . . . but they . . ." Harry couldn't seem to catch his breath. Snape's hand ran down his side, his fingertips gently probing the knife-wound there.

"He's been stabbed," the Potions master said blankly, staring down at the blood covering his hands. "He's been— "

"_Severus_!" McGonagall was shaking him.

"The knife punctured his lung." Snape found his voice again, and his composure. "We have to get him to Poppy, and _quickly_." He leaned over the boy. "Harry? Can you hear me? Just hang on . . you're going to be fine." _Please, God, let that not be a lie. _

"Sev . . . don't let them die. Okay?" Harry pleaded. "Follow . . . follow the horses," he said faintly. His eyes locked on Snape's for an instant, but without the barrier of the boy's Occlumency shields, an instant was all the professor needed.

Severus stumbled to his feet as Dumbledore and the others floated the boy onto a stretcher and rushed him up the Hospital Wing and Poppy Pomphrey. He wanted to be there, but he knew Poppy would throw all of them out within seconds of seeing her patient, and if he didn't pull himself together by the time Harry needed him, he'd end up doing more harm than good.

"Shadow," he called, cautiously approaching the young thestral he'd glimpsed in Harry's memories. _If he succeeded in doing what he thought he had . ._ . It was interesting, the things Potter tried due to his ignorance of the wizarding world. But if this worked . . . .

Gently he lay his hand on the thestral's muzzle, and he shivered as he met its gaze. "Please find them," he said, feeling beyond stupid. But Harry had tried Legilimency on the animal before he'd collapsed, and believed he'd felt the thestral acknowledge his request.

The stallion dipped its head in what Snape swore looked like a nod before it took to the air in a rush of wings, followed by half a dozen of the others. The rest of the flock – _or was it a herd? _Severus thought irrelevantly – milled around him in mild confusion before one of the females lined herself up beside him in the manner of a trained mount.

"Okay, Potter." Snape took a deep breath and placed his hand on the mare's neck. "But if your pet demon throws me, I swear . ." Quickly he slid onto the animal's back, grabbing for the ebony mane as the thestral flicked open enormous wings and launched itself skyward. Sev took a quick glance down at the receding ground below and closed his eyes, his lips moving in a litany of silent prayers. He didn't look up again until he felt the slight jar of the landing and heard the click of the mare's hooves on stone.

He recognized the balcony she'd landed on. "No animals in the hospital wing," he said, opening the glass doors and attempting to slip through without her. She bared fangs the Loch Ness monster would be proud of and growled ferociously. "Poppy is _not_ going to like this." It rankled, letting an _animal_ get the better of him, but he wanted to be there when the boy regained consciousness. He didn't have time to deal with Potter's new playmates. He shoved the doors open again and stepped into the ward, ignoring the thestral that followed him inside.

"Poppy's working on him," Dumbledore said as he entered, and made no comment about his newly acquired shadow. "It's . . . it's bad." He rose immediately as Poppy entered the room, and the spark in his eyes died at the severity of her expression.

"He's asking for you, Severus," she said, and for a moment he couldn't move. That was his _child_ in there – not by blood, but he knew just how little blood mattered when it came to relationships. For a moment despair all but crushed him, before fury took its place.

"Damned if I'll give in to his little death-bed rituals," he growled under his breath. He shoved open the doors to the hospital wing and marched into the room, and could have looked no more grim if he'd been storming the front doors of Voldemort's stronghold. "_Potter_!" he bellowed. "What do you think you're doing? There's work to be done, Weasleys to rescue! _Get it together_!"

Harry's eyes opened slowly. "Sev?"

"Come on, Potter. Don't tell me a few mere Death Eaters are going to be the end of you? Where's that vaunted Gryffindor courage?"  
"I hope . . with them." Harry turned his face away, and Severus saw the shadows there. _So young_, he thought savagely. _He's only a boy, really, and yet_ . . . A single tear trailed down Potter's face, and Snape reached forward to brush it away before realizing how _parental_ such a gesture seemed. Not that any hand had wiped away _his_ childhood tears – and from the look on Harry's face, there'd been precious little sympathy in the Dursley household, either – but dammit, he was old enough to look back on the memories now and realize that somewhere along the line, someone should have.

"Well, you certainly can't protect them if you're dead." Snape raised a hand to forestall the protest he saw in Harry's eyes. "I know – that _ridiculous _theory you prescribe to. He'll die if you do, and all that rot. But believe me, Potter, if I thought there was an _ounce_ of truth to such speculation, I'd've bumped you off myself years ago and saved this school a great deal of aggravation."

"No . . ." Harry coughed, and the harsh sound made Snape wince. He hoped Harry hadn't noticed. "You'd never . . prove the Prophet . . right."

"That sad excuse for a newspaper did have it out for you," Sev agreed. "And anyway, Potter, you can't die today."

Amusement flickered in the boy's eyes, and Severus reveled in that spark of life through the pain and resignation dimming that vibrant green gaze.

"Why n ot?"

"Merlin, Potter . . . . _why_?" Snape tapped his foot in mock impatience. "Let's see. I'm already getting a late start on my 'rescue the Weasels' mission – like the world hasn't got enough of the red-haired rodents – which could conceivably take up all my spare time for a week. There's always a chance that the Dark Lord will summon me, and that always puts a serious dent in my day. I'm going to have to help re-spell the castle and inform a group of very unhappy Slytherin, Quidditch-mad teenagers that their favorite sport will be canceled until further notice, and clean up after their temper tantrums. And that's just what I have to do _today_. So no, Potter, I refuse to squeeze your funeral into my itinerary."

"Sorry for the . . . inconvenience."

"You should be. And you know, Potter, if you get better quick, you might even be deemed fit enough to ride one of those bloody horses and lead the way to the Weasleys. And, as Albus and Minerva are _not_ going to want to ride a _thestral_ all the way to the Dark Lord's headquarters, that presumably leaves _me_ riding one of the beasts if you're still stuck in this hospital bed. So, Potter, if you play your cards right, I might even . ." Snape shuddered, and continued in an exaggerated whisper, "owe you one!"

"How sweet."

Severus blinked. "You didn't, Potter –" his voice shook with outrage—"just suggest that I was _sweet_. What a truly nauseating prospect. So of course, I was undoubtedly mistaken. The _Headmaster_ is sweet. Puppies are sweet. Ex- Death Eaters turned Potion masters are not _sweet_."

"I thought . . . after Sirius died . . that it would be okay – if he killed me. 'S what I'm . . for."

"No, Harry." Severus whispered it, his fingers tightening around the boy's. "That's not who you are."

"But I have . . to be careful, now. Because . . you care. I thought, when he died . . . that no one ever would again. But you know . . all there is to know about me . . and you do."

Severus was aware of Dumbledore's soft footsteps behind him, of McGonagall's wide-eyed stare. He could hear Poppy – bless her sense of discretion – checking supplies across the room as though there was nothing unusual in the sight of him at Potter's bedside. And he squeezed Potter's hand in brief reassurance.

"Yes, Harry. I do."

"And somehow . . that makes things okay." Potter's eyes fluttered closed, and Snape shot a glance at Pomphrey, who gave him a gentle smile. He looked down at the boy, his fingers testing the pulse at that too-thin wrist. Potter slept, and from the faint smile on his face, Voldemort was too busy to disturb his slumber.

"Poppy?" Severus queried.

"He'll be fine, thanks to you. His magic is keeping him alive now, healing the damage at an astounding rate. You gave him the will to fight, Severus. And that's something I, for all my training, could never do."

"What?" Snape barked, turning to glare fiercely at Minerva, whose gaze flicked from him to Potter and back again, as though she couldn't decide who had most surprised her.

"Severus . ." Albus laid a hand on his arm. "We need to gather the Order, begin our search for the Weasleys."

Snape chanced a last look at Potter before turning away. "No need. If Potter could have _me_ fawning over him—"

"And he does," McGonagall murmured.

Severus ignored her. "—then he could certainly convince a herd of thestrals to do his bidding. They'll find the Weasleys, faster than we ever could." He padded back through the doorway, and smiled faintly when he saw the great black animal standing there. He whistled, softly, and the mare obeyed his summons, slipping past him to stand over Potter. Gently she rested her muzzle on his chest – as if to assure herself that the boy breathed still, Severus thought – before turning again to the Potions professor.

"I knew – after the attack today – that he was a thestral, and exercised some control over the others here," Dumbledore said. "But I would never have expected them to view him as their leader . . their alpha male."

"He runs with them, some nights," Snape confessed. "Oftener than he would have me believe. And still, knowing that, it surprised me too."

"He has a unique gift, beyond what powers he shared with Voldemort." Dumbledore's tone was grave, but there was hope in it still. "He inspires loyalty, like no one I have ever seen. The students, here, will fight for him – even those who would not do the same for me. And sometimes, I envy him that."

Severus could not imagine Dumbledore envying anyone anything. "He doesn't realize," he whispered. "It would only disturb him, if he did."

"He's a Gryffindor." McGonagall offered this bit of wisdom as though it answered everything. And, perhaps, it did.

"I care about him . . too much, perhaps. I hid the truth from him because I wished to protect him. And in the end, I only drove him away." Albus sighed. "He has you," he said to Snape, "and I will admit I had a few concerns when his choice became apparent. But he brings out the best in you, for which I am grateful. He needs someone to care, and he would no longer believe that I do."

"Tell him that, someday," Severus advised. "He may not believe, but it will change him nonetheless. Because he loves you, sees you as a sort of grandfather. And it hurts him to go against you, even in ways that do no harm." He hesitated. "He asked me once . . . why his parents died to save him . . . why so many people seem willing to do the same now. And I couldn't give him an answer – because I am one of those people. I would not have believed myself capable of that . . _depth_ of emotion." He shrugged, looked down at Potter's sleeping form. "He makes you believe. And he would never understand just how special a gift that is."

They stood in silence for a moment more as Harry stirred in his sleep, united briefly in their concern for one small Gryffindor Seeker. The thestral rustled its wings and took up a post at Potter's bedside in a manner that clearly stated her intention to serve as his protector. Severus paused beside the black horse on his way out of the room.

"Guard him well," he said quietly. "He doesn't realize what he means to us all." And he closed the door gently behind him.


	6. Shadowed Silence

"He'll wake soon," Poppy said. They'd gathered in the staffroom, Snape and Poppy and Minerva, with Albus in his office, sending Fawkes to fetch the rest of the Order. Severus was in his favorite armchair – a velvet one of unmistakeably _Gryffindor_ red, McGonagall liked to tease. He didn't quite think of it that way. He'd laid claim to the seat because of its position in the darkest, most remote corner of the room, not for the color, which he personally believed closer to the hue of fresh blood than her house symbol.

Not that such morbid thoughts were helpful. "Of course," Severus almost sneered.

He'd gone quiet after they'd left the hospital wing, his expression suspiciously blank, what remarks he made delivered in a tone so cold it might freeze Hell solid. Embarrassed, Minerva thought, and couldn't quite hide her smile. She'd never seen the young Potions master so demonstrative with anyone, not even Albus, whom he clearly regarded in a parental light. It was the difference, she mused, between having a father you respected and trusted, and having a child of your own. Not that Severus had much experience with _family_, nor with affection. She bristled as she recalled the frequent bruises Severus had always returned to school with as a child. That had ended when the Slytherin boy had entered his sixth year, she recalled, and two weeks afterward the elder Snape had been found dead in his home, the Dark Mark a brilliant green in the sky above. She'd always wondered if that had been the bribe Snape had demanded for his loyalty to Lord Voldemort – he was savvy enough to have known that his gift with Potions made his allegiance a valuable commodity – but she would never ask.

"Harry never stays in your care for very long, Poppy," said Minerva. Albus's entrance drew the nurse's attention, and McGonagall leaned toward her younger colleague. "Harry won't understand the change," she hissed at him. Severus blinked, surprised, and she went on. "He's already hurting – don't you _dare _take that cold tone with him when he wakes. He doesn't know you like I do."

"No," Severus agreed, dark eyes gleaming dangerously. "He doesn't. He knows _better_."

Oh. That was . . _interesting_. Minerva turned away in time to catch Albus's scolding look. _Leave him alone_, that look said plainly, and Minerva winced. Okay, she'd misjudged him. Better safe than sorry, though, as the saying went. Severus might take a firmer hand in the rearing of his students, but Minerva took care of her own, too – and Harry was, as usual, a special case. She knew how much living with those . . those _Muggles_ affected him. She saw the same signs in him she'd recognized in Severus two decades before, and this time, she could do something about it. The Dursleys might not be as physical about it as Severus's father had been, but that made the abuse no less damaging, just harder to see.

One by one, the members of the Order entered the room, Floo-ing in from the heavily guarded fireplace in Albus's rooms. Minerva conjured the extra chairs without a word. Pomphrey popped out to check on her patient, and McGonagall smiled at the frustration on Severus's face. He was too well-bred to fidget; what nervous habits his upbringing hadn't trained out of him, Voldemort had. Severus had learned patience in a much harder school than most, but Minerva could feel his frustration, even if she could see no outward signs. The covert nature of Harry's training with the ex-Death Eater forced Severus to stillness when she imagined every instinct demanded that he go to the injured child.

Minerva tapped his arm lightly, and Snape turned on her, jaw clenched, his gaze fierce. "He's _my_ child, too," she whispered. After a moment he nodded, and seemed to relax a little as they waited for Poppy's return.

Minerva felt the sudden tension in the younger man as the school nurse returned with Harry in tow. "Easy, Severus," she muttered, and he growled.

"You think I don't know?" he returned, softly. He nudged her. "Go see how he is," he demanded.

"No need. Poppy will bring him to us first. She has plenty of experience with concerned parents." Minerva couldn't help teasing the otherwise so self-contained man, having found the one weakness he couldn't completely hide.

"Piss off." Severus crossed his arms, settled more comfortably in his chair, and refused to rise to the bait.

"Been taking language lessons from Harry, now?" She smirked. "I haven't heard you ever sound so much like a teenager – even when you were one."

"Se – Professor." Harry corrected himself quickly, and had Minerva grinning like the Chesire Cat.

"Harry," Severus said easily; in the whirlwind of voices around them as the Order members queried Dumbledore, no one could hear them. He rose, and pushed Harry down into the chair he'd occupied, hunkering down in front of him. "Drop the shields," he commanded, meeting Harry's eyes.

"No."

"Harry," Snape said warningly, and the boy rolled his eyes and subsided.

"Fine. Cranky old bat," he complained.

"Don't talk about your Head of House that way, Potter," Snape said absently.

Minerva watched with interest. Snape was clearly attached to the boy, but Harry's willingness to drop his mental shielding and allow Severus to perform Legilimency on him spoke volumes. She couldn't imagine that amount of trust . . . and yet, what had she done, each time she met Severus's gaze, but trust that he wouldn't take advantage of the moment to skim through her thoughts?

"I guess now would be the time to warn you that I'm a fairly accomplished Legilimens too," said Harry. He smiled at her look of surprise. "No, I wasn't doing it now."

"Your face is likely easier to read than your mind," Snape commented, rising to his feet and conjuring another chair for himself.

"If I might have everyone's attention?" Dumbledore stood at the front of the room, a phoenix on his shoulder and worry in his eyes. He cared so much about Harry, Minerva knew – viewed young Potter as more of a grandson than a student. And if the Weasleys were not recovered alive, Harry would never forgive any of them – least of all himself. It would destroy him, and that was something they could not, even from just a purely tactical standpoint, afford.

"Four members of the Gryffindor Quidditch team were killed today by Death Eaters. The youngest Weasleys – Ron and Ginevra – have been taken from the castle grounds, presumably to Lord Voldemort."

Silence descended, broken only by Molly Weasley's sobs. Arthur was silent, his eyes huge as his face rapidly lost all colour, and the helpless desperation in his expression spoke louder than his wife's tears.

"We have employed . . an _unusual_ method of tracking the Death Eaters responsible. Severus could well have been seen aiding Hogwarts forces this afternoon, and so I have deemed it too dangerous for him to seek information through his usual channels."

"_I don't care_!"

"Molly, please, Albus is doing all he can . . ." Arthur tried, soothingly.

"Let that_ . . that Death Eater _go back_ where he belongs_!" Molly marched across the room toward Severus, who slunk lower in his seat in misery. Minerva knew how hard he'd pleaded to be allowed to at least _fire-call _a few of his old "friends." Albus had denied him, and Severus had obeyed, for Harry's sake.

"Leave him alone!" Harry leapt to his feet, stepping in front of Severus in a manner that was clearly protective. Severus tried to push him out of the way, but Molly's focus had already shifted to the boy.

"How could you let this _happen_? Ron was your _best friend_! We treated you like _family_!"

Harry froze; Minerva saw the shudder that racked his newly healed body. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Weasley," he whispered, and his voice was hoarse. "I tried . . ."

"_Back off_, Weasley!" Severus drew his wand, leveled it at the Weasley matriarch. "You stay the hell away from him."

"What business is it of yours?" Molly demanded. She was hysterical, Minerva noted dully. Everyone in the room seemed stunned into silence by the uncharacteristic attack, particularly once Molly turned her fury on Harry.

"He nearly died today! He'd have fought to the death for them, _and he damn near did_! He killed people, Molly." Severus's voice dropped to a more normal level. "Death Eaters, yes, but people just the same. Not with magic, not with a neat, clean _Avada Kedavra_, but in his Animagus form – the only weapon he had left when they outnumbered him twenty to one and took his wand. _He's sixteen years old_."

"Severus, Molly, that is _enough_." Albus had found his voice again.

"He _collapsed at my feet_, Molly." Severus was on his feet now, in Molly's face. "He's here not because he didn't want to go after them, but because he nearly _bled to death_, and _couldn't_."

"Sev, _stop it_!" Harry's voice came out halfway between command and plea.

"Well, now I know how to quiet a room," Albus said after a moment, his tone deliberately light. Severus obediently put up his wand and sat back down, still glaring fiercely at Molly Weasley, who couldn't stop staring at Harry, right along with the rest of the room.

"Harry?" Remus Lupin crossed the room to stand beside the young Gryffindor. "I am so sorry for what you had to do to protect yourself, but you did only what you must to try to defend your friends. None of us want to make you re-live that attack. But we need you to tell us what happened."

"Okay."

Minerva reached over to run her palm comfortingly down the boy's arm, offering him her silent support. On his other side, she could see that Severus was doing the same. From across the room Albus gave her a questioning glance, and she shook her head. Remus would do a better job of coaxing information out of Potter, and likely be gentler about it. Harry's erratic relationship with the Hogwarts Headmaster made Albus a less than desirable interrogator.

"Severus . . ah, Professor Snape, has been giving me Defense lessons for most of the year, but your knew that." Harry cleared his throat. "I finished my Animagus training maybe a month ago. I'm a thestral."

"An . . unusual form."

"Apt, I thought. And deadly . . . I hadn't realized how much. I guess I always thought of them as _horses_, not as . . hunters." And he shivered. "I liked to fly with the flock Hagrid keeps on the grounds, for the carriages. Ginny saw a few of the thestrals at the edge of the Forest today – she knows I like them, but not why – and I went over to pet them for a few minutes. I saw the lights . . thought it was Ginny, pranking Ron again. And then I saw the green flash, and I knew.

"I don't remember running to them. I should have taken the time to plan, but I didn't realize it would be . . so bad, so fast. I'd been _with_ them, not five minutes before. There were Death Eaters all over the Pitch . . . I tripped over one of our Chasers, the youngest one . . she's our Reserve, playing because Tara is out with an injury. She was dead – I can't remember her name."

"Monaghey. Megan Monaghey," the Gryffindor Head of House offered, and Harry nodded jerkily.

"Death Eaters summoned my wand before I could think of what to _do_. I heard Ginny scream, and I thought it was all over, that quick . . . . I managed to change forms, the transformation's still a little rough, and I went for them. I killed the first one, ripped out his throat . . . trampled a couple others to death. I couldn't find Ron or Ginny or _anyone_, and I panicked. I think I screamed . . ."

"It's going to be okay, Harry," Remus said gently, but even he didn't look as though he believed his own words.

"The other thestrals came . . . they were helping me, chasing down the Death Eaters. Killing them." Harry swallowed hard. He didn't realize his fists were clenched until Severus reached forward, silently trying to coax his fingers to uncurl. There were little crescent-moon cuts on his palms, and Snape wiped away the few drops of blood without comment.

"I didn't see the professors out there until Severus stopped me from slaughtering Malfoy. I never thanked you for that," he added, turning to the Potions master.

"You would have stopped," Snape said confidently.

"Lucius was trying to surrender," Harry explained. "Asking Sev to protect him. I stopped, called the other thestrals off. I guess Malfoy realized Severus was a traitor to Voldemort, because he attacked us. I killed him. Have you ever seen what a thestral's hooves can do to a human skull?"

"Oh, Harry-pup, I wish I'd been there for you."

"Me, too," Harry whispered. "I collapsed after that . . I'd been stabbed, or so Madame Pomphrey tells me. I used Legilimency to ask Shadow – the thestral stallion – to follow the Death Eaters, to find Ron and Ginny, and then I passed out."

"Potter dropped his Occlumency shields, showed me what he'd tried with the animals," Snape added. "As far as I could tell, they understood what he was asking them to do perfectly well, and more – they were both able and willing to help him. Several of them took up the search after I assured them that we would look after Harry."

"You're trusting a flock of _thestrals_ to find my children?" Molly looked disturbed by the notion, though her gaze, when it rested on Harry, had softened considerably, and she was even looking more charitably disposed toward Severus.

"They got us to the Department of Mysteries last year," Harry said abruptly. "A fool's errand, I know, but they got us there, faster than any broom."

"I have every faith in your and Severus's assessment of the thestrals' ability. Therefore, I should think the immediate need is for a plan of attack once we find Ron and Ginevra," Albus said, very calmly.

The rest of the Order immediately launched into a flurry of noise and movement as they discussed and dismissed various battle tactics. Harry sat quietly, still tired from his ordeal, wishing uselessly that he had Ron's gift for strategy, or Ginny's courage, or Hermione's brain . . wait. "Hermione."

"What?" Severus sat beside him still; McGonagall was talking to Dumbledore.

"Has anyone even told Hermione?"

"No. She would only try to concoct a hair-brained scheme more suited to _you_, and one adolescent is enough to worry over in a battle."

"I didn't think I'd get to go. At least, openly."

"I assume even Albus knows better than to try to leave you behind. You'd only follow, probably saving a few of our lives in the process, and we'd never live down the shame of being rescued by a boy still in school."

A tap at the door drew their attention, and Poppy stepped inside, followed by a trio of thestrals. "Came in through _my _Hospital Wing!" she said, indignantly. Despite the dire situation, Harry couldn't stop himself from smiling at the absurdity of it. "Keep your pets out of my infirmary, Mr. Potter! And close the balcony doors next time, Severus!"

"Right, Poppy. Of course." Severus waved the nurse away, and with a sound of displeasure she disappeared down the hallway.

The thestrals slipped across the room to Harry, their hooves making surprisingly little noise on the stone floor. The foremost horse lowered its head to lock eyes with the boy, and after a moment Harry sat back with a sigh of relief.

"They've found them," he said, and Remus let out a little laugh.

"We keep underestimating you, don't we, Harry?" The werewolf glanced at Snape, who gave him a look that said, "_I told you so_," as clearly as any spoken words. "You don't have to look so smug," Lupin muttered. Severus only smirked.

"Does everyone have their brooms, then?" Dumbledore inquired.

"That won't work," Harry interrupted. "The thestrals can outfly my Firebolt, and their stamina far outreaches ours. I don't know how far it is; they don't have a clearly defined concept of _distance_. We can't risk having some of the less-skilled fliers fall out before we get there."

"What does a _boy_ know about it?" a voice grumbled from the back of the room.

"About Voldemort? A helluva lot more than whoever said that," Harry snapped. "About the thestrals? I _am_ one, which I doubt anybody _else_ here can claim."

"I agree with Potter." Alastor Moody stomped his way to the front of the group. "How are you proposing we get there, Potter?" the old auror asked, that eerie blue eye steadily fixed on Harry.

"We ride, Moody." Harry shrugged. "Just, ah, not a broom." He jerked his thumb in the direction of the winged horses by way of explanation. "And, just aside from their speed . . . they would be formidable weapons against the Death Eaters. I think I proved that today."

"Will they fight for us?" Albus asked. "Even without you?"

"For Severus, yes." Harry wasn't going to revert to the formal 'Professor Snape,' not now, when he needed support the most. "Possibly for you. After that, I don't know. Not that it should matter. I'll be with them, and we already know they'll follow my lead."

"Harry . . . I'm afraid I cannot permit you to come this time." Dumbledore raised a hand to forestall Harry's protests. "You are exhausted, and Poppy's recommended at _least_ two days of bed rest before any activity."

"I've worked with worse injuries than this!" Harry inwardly cringed at the implications of what he'd just admitted, but he couldn't think of anything to say that would sufficiently cover the slip.

"Let 'im go, Dumbledore," Moody advised. "He'll be safe enough in the air, so long as he doesn't try straight out dueling Death Eaters. Safer with us than without, at any rate."

"He goes, Albus," Severus said flatly. "Don't forget – I trained him. I was a member of the Dark Lord's inner circle during his first reign, and everything I can do, Harry can as well. Probably better," he added, not without a degree of aggravation.

"You have faith in his abilities, Severus?" Albus looked disturbed by Snape's easy reference to his less-legit Death Eater days.

"I believe he could duel any witch or wizard in the Dark Lord's ranks, and _win_. He's an asset, Albus, not a liability. It's time you recognized that."

Albus hesitated. "As you will," he said after a pause, turning away. " But we need to do this, and quickly."

"I'll gather the rest of the flock," Harry volunteered, vaulting onto Shadow's back and glancing askance at Severus.

"Right," the Potions master sighed. He flicked his wand at the enormous windows, and the glass simply vanished. With a wave of thanks, Harry urged the thestrals through the gap, and disappeared from sight.

"That boy will be the death of us," Minerva pronounced.

"Too _bloody_ true," Snape answered, and followed the rest of the Order downstairs to wait for Harry's return.


End file.
